Demolition

Welcome to the gritty, loud, and somewhat injurious world of demolition!

Sorry, #notsorry, walls. You served your purpose as a 2-classroom tutoring center.

Now, it’s time to evolve into a one-classroom, yoga studio with showers.We’ve got to tear you down, to build you back up again.

Is it fun? Yeah, kinda. Is it easy? No. Is there a risk of electrocution? Well, maybe.

So, goggles, N95 mask, hiking boots and padded bike gloves (for me anyway, my husband is a ‘man’ and does not require such precautions)… we began.

Standing on wobbly bookshelves to take down a drop ceiling… smashing drywall into impressively tall mountains of plaster shards… an equally crazy heap of insulation… tons of twisted metal, glass panels, carpet panels wrenched from the floor like so many stubborn Band-Aids… it has been an action-packed few days. Looking at all the mayhem and detritus surrounding us, made me think

‘Wow, this is not entirely unlike making a wedding cake.’

I used to make cakes, and there was a definite correlation between the gorgeousness of the cake, and the unapologetically wrecked state of my kitchen. Cracked eggs. Empty boxes. Cake scraps, colored sugar paste shavings, and a good layer of flour… everywhere.

‘It looks like an easter bunny exploded in here!’, was this best description I heard of it.

So, I equate surveying chaos, with… creating something new.

Our yoga studio space is currently a wasteland, right out of Mad Max. But I can see the beauty hanging in the air, our invisible dreams and plans, waiting for the right moment to become real.

My hands are raw. My body is a bit bruised and scraped. My muscles are somewhere between perplexed, displeased, and glowing with fury. Alongside all that, I’m ecstatically happy, and hopeful!

I’m not alone in this. I have family, neighbors, and friends. I have purpose. I read once that for happiness to be present, we need ‘something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. Cliche’, but not entirely untrue. We’ve got a LOT to do, a lot of love, a lot of ideas… and happiness is just a logical side effect.

Going through my mom’s things once, receipts, lists, etc… I unexpectedly found a poem written on a tiny notepad, with a little drawing of a daisy popping up between cracks in the ground. I had no idea, that she wrote poems, or drew pictures. It said :

Amid the desolation

Life springs

Nothing can stop the pace.

The struggle to survive

Against all odds